by Laura Briggs
"Come in," I said. I opened the door fully. He crossed the threshold, looking around at the room. Where, shamefully, I'd done very little personal decorating, except for hanging a few pictures of friends, and sticking some Cornish souvenirs on shelves. I even had the same old tartan curtains over the windows. For a moment, I thought I saw a little wistfulness in his face.
I softened, just a little. "It looks a little empty, doesn't it?" I said. I could be polite a little longer. No need to scold him for being an insensitive coward straightaway.
"It looks fine," he said. He smiled. "I remember seeing that picture in your office at Cliffs House. The one of you and Aimee."
His smile was only a weak, half-hearted attempt at one, really, but it still did strange things to my heart and head, unwilling as I was. "I'll just ... grab the box."
I made my escape, trying to contain the heat inside me the longer I was in Matt's company — part longing and part anger. The cardboard box with Matt's stray possessions was in my closet. Nothing valuable, just some 'bits and bobs' that I had discovered while cleaning. Since I shouldn't be keeping any reminders of Matt, probably, it would be better to give them back to their rightful owner.
I handed it to Matt. "It's just a few things," I said. "A shirt, a coffee mug ... a paperweight I found in the back of a shelf."
He lifted a paper star from its contents, studying it with a faint smile. I tried not to blush, remembering folding it myself back in December. The two of us decorating the tree in this room, on the verge of being so much more than friends....
"I, um, was so surprised you didn't rent this place," I continued. Was my tone actually cold at this moment? "Even if you're only staying a few weeks." Before you rush off to London, which is the only way I have a chance of forgetting about you.
"Like you said, it was only for a few weeks." His voice sounded distant, too. "I missed Mathilda's emails about the lease ... by the time I read it, I thought it wouldn't be fair to beg a few weeks' permission from her. I thought I'd stay someplace further from the village's center." He didn't say where.
"So are you working in London?" I asked. "Or is it just the precursor to somewhere else — Oxford, maybe? Cambridge? Eton? Another class of bright young minds destined for botanical greatness?" I knew I should ask about his South American trip, in order to clear the air. Then the subject of our breakup would deal with nothing but our personal failures.
"None of them," he said. "I'm not working in London. I'm ..." he hesitated. "I'm not sure what I'll be doing." He sounded evasive — and unhappy — and not in a way that made me think he was uncomfortable chatting with his former girlfriend.
"Before you go, you owe me an explanation, at least." I crossed my arms, planting my feet squarely apart in my heels, which gave me enough height to be level with Matt's gaze. "For why you never answered my letter after I apologized to you. And why you didn't have the decency to break up with me using something other than silence, Matt."
A cornered look crossed Matt's face. He looked more uncomfortable than ever, avoiding my eyes.
"Because I didn't —" he began. "I never —" He stopped speaking, running one hand through his hair in frustration. "I have no idea where to start." He let out a bitter laugh at this point. "I hadn't wanted to say anything. That was the whole point of being out of the way and not seeing anyone here. Not seeing you especially." His eyes wouldn't meet mine, but I could see frustration in them.
"Never what?" I said. "Don't you think I deserve the truth?" At this moment, something about Matt's words made me feel a tiny bit of dread, because we were no longer talking about our silly argument over piranhas.
Carefully, Matt set the box he was holding on the nearby chair.
"Before I left for South America, I had a physical," he said. "Routine blood work and vaccinations. I wrote to you the day I left, then I was out of touch for six weeks ... when I came back, there was a phone message waiting for me from the medical clinic. Several messages. They'd been trying to get in touch with me for weeks, because there was an abnormality in my white cell count."
I drew a sharp breath. Cancer.
"They wanted to do some tests as soon as possible. And they — they thought they might have found something." He lifted his gaze to mine. Oh so briefly, but in it, I read oh so much.
"When I got the news, I didn't know what to do," he said. "It was a shock. Crushing. They scheduled a biopsy. And they told me if the results are positive, then it's likely an advanced stage."
And a poor prognosis. He didn't have to say it, because I knew that already from his voice, which was trying so hard to be calm and careful, but couldn't hold everything back.
"I read your messages. But by then I already knew, and I couldn't ... I couldn't ask you to deal with this. I couldn't ask that of anyone." He swallowed. "I had one week of classes left, and I decided to leave for London for the test, and come home to wait ... and if it turned out that it was negative, I would come to you and explain, and everything would be fine again ...."
It wasn't only misery in his voice and face, I noticed. His cheeks were hollow, his body gaunt from worry. He had spent the past two weeks worrying that he had only months left to live, and was planning to hide from everyone in the place he loved most until he knew the truth. He hadn't left my messages unanswered because he was scared of breaking up with me, but of breaking my heart by making me watch him die.
"And if it was positive?" I asked. Quietly.
Matt didn't answer for a moment. "It would be better for me to let you go," he said. His voice broke slightly. "I would have said goodbye to you."
"How could you?" I realized that tears were gathering in my eyes, and I worked hard to blink them back. "How could you keep this a secret?"
"Julianne, we're talking about weeks. Months at most. I couldn't ask you to wait — even if I took treatments in London, they might not work. I couldn't hurt you by making you go through it, too. I don't want to hurt the people I love more than I have to with this. And this isn't what you deserve in life. "
That was it. I was really angry now. I took my hands off my hips and took two quick steps across the floorboards, my arms closing around Matt. Holding him as tight as I could, possibly squeezing the breath out of his chest, but I didn't care.
"Don't you ever, ever again suggest I could care so little about you that I would walk away now." My cheek rested against his, my lips close to his ear. "Do you understand, Matthew Rose? If you ever so much as think about breaking up with me again over a little thing like a medical diagnosis, I'll honestly kill you myself."
I felt a tremor in his frame. Laughter, I realized. "Julianne," he began.
"No, honestly," I said. I drew back from my hold on him. "I thought you were holding my stupid jealousy over a sick plant against me. If I had even dreamed that you needed me, I would have been on a plane to Boston in ten seconds, holding your hand."
"Missing out on your life," he answered, softly. I laid my hand against his cheek.
"This is part of my life," I said. "I'm not saying it doesn't hurt that this is what we're facing ... but I'd rather face it with you than have you shut me out to be protective. That's my choice, Matt. And if you try to banish me again, you'll see what I'm like when I'm really angry. Not just peeved over some unanswered emails and — and piranhas, or whatever."
When he chuckled, the unhappy lines in his face relaxed, at least a little. The burden of keeping it secret from everyone had been too much for him, a lonely exile that was exhausting him. I cupped his face as I kissed his cheek, then his lips. It was the first time in weeks, and it felt good.
He kissed me back, tenderly, then eagerly. His arms tightened around me, and I felt the hunger from our last moments together in Boston, and also felt the tension melting away from Matt's frame.
When he released me, I drew free from his embrace and lifted my jacket from the sofa. "I need to pack," I said. "And you need to put that box back in the closet so it isn't cluttering up this place. Tha
t's the only decent chair for company."
"What? Why put it back?" Matt sounded mystified. "And where are you going?"
"Someplace else," I said. "Because you're staying here from now on, where you belong."
A look of resistance crossed his face. "Julianne, no," he said. "This is your place now. I'm not taking it from you. And I'm not having you sleep in an inn because of a sentimental idea."
"I have a place to stay," I answered. I reached into his jacket pocket and drew out his keys. "We'll get things swapped around later, but for now, I'll just keep my stuff here until yours is shipped back."
"I can't let you do this," Matt protested. He was being stubborn — he obviously hadn't realized I'd seen the wistfulness in his eyes when he looked around at his former home.
"Too late," I said. "Garden's a mess, by the way. Know somebody who can deal with that?" I kissed his cheek again, and gave him a saucy look as I went to pack a few things for tomorrow before scrounging up a suitable dinner and tea for two.
***
Matthew's temporary residence in Cornwall was a 'rent by the week' flat in a house on the edge of Ceffylgwyn: one room and mini kitchen close to the 'water closet.' Its best asset was a beautiful view of one of the Channel's inlets, even more forlorn and haunting than Cliffs House's coastal view. I savored it as I folded one of Matt's shirts that had been draped over the rumpled single bed.
Unsatisfactorily, not much of Matthew was present, but there were a few books on the nightstand, on tropical plant diseases and taxonomy of Brazilian flora. Reading way too dry for me when I paged through them, compared to the Cornish folk tales and nature guides I'd borrowed from Matthew. But I made myself read a little, to make up for my unfair remarks about South America, before I restacked them, neatly.
Sketches of a dissected plant on the wall, of an unusual little white-and-purple blossom cluster with droopy, sleepy-looking leaves. These reminded me of Constance's artwork, the sketches in her portfolio, although I knew Matt was probably thinking about the scientific application as much as their beauty when he drew them. They were the only decorating Matt had done for his week of exile.
I admit it — my tidying up Matt's place was really an excuse to snoop a little. I smiled when I found his printed photos from South America and his trip journal tucked beneath today's paper. Wistfully, I paged through his meticulous notes on culture smears, microscope slides, and climate temperatures, and the glossy images of Matt and other members of his team at their base camp, or smiling as they posed before a breathtaking waterfall.
I wished that things had been different, and that we had never fought. I wished there had never been a message in his voicemail from a worried medical staffer, and that he had called me first thing when he landed, with us chatting over a webcam connection as he shared his photos and adventures.
That couldn't be changed now, of course. But we would make sure that things were different from now on. No matter what the answers to Matt's biopsy revealed to us.
Unfortunately, the one thing I had forgotten to do while camping out at Matt's for the night was to set my alarm. I woke up groggy and late at eight-thirty in the morning, my face buried against a pillow that smelled vaguely of Matt's brand of shampoo and soap, then raced to put on the cashmere cardigan and wool skirt I had brought. Shoving my Prada heels on my feet and grabbing my clutch and mobile, I hurried out the door.
Lady Amanda would be back at any moment, if she wasn't home already, and I was supposed to meet her and Constance this morning. And I still needed to talk to Billy about the tea garden's makeover — thus far, he didn't seem to have touched it, despite Lord William's promise.
I marched up the pathway to the main English garden, the path flanked by perfectly-trimmed hedges that fenced it in like a maze's walls. In the heart of it, Billy was aerating the rose bushes, a cigarette between his lips flicking ash on the compost as he stabbed through the ground savagely with a long-handled fork.
"Good morning, Billy," I said.
"Nonuvit," he grunted.
"I kind of noticed that you haven't started on the east garden, like we discussed before," I said, taking a polite tact for opening the discussion. "Didn't Lord William tell you that it was a priority right now? As in 'must be done immediately?'"
Billy looked up from his work, eyes fixed on me in a glare of revulsion. "Dnwhat ye blabberin' on," he said.
I thought I understood that remark, strangely enough. "Lord William and Lady Amanda want the east garden readied for spring," I said, firmly. "Now. If you didn't get that impression from his remarks, then you're quite mistaken about whatever impression you did get." I planted my hands on my hips, bracing in battle stance for his reply. Obviously, Billy hadn't taken Lord William's arguments to heart.
His lip curled. "T'eastgard nowhat be done fer a fortnight. Daftwomn, didyeno hear t'first time?"
An insult. That much I made out. "Billy," I said, firmly. "I want flowers in the east garden. Please. I don't care about schedules or routines right now. It's an order from Lady Amanda, and I don't care if it has to be daffodils by the dozen or paperwhites, but it will be in bloom before two weeks. Is that understood? Now do this or else!"
I turned on my heel, the stiletto sinking into the earth a little bit, which ruined my exit somewhat. And poked a hole in the lawn, which might explain the final burst of vitriolic speech from Billy, aimed at my departing self. None of which sounded English to me as he shouted it over the hedges, but a great deal like the words some of the old fishermen down at the pub used whenever they spilled a pint.
I could hear Lord William's heavy-duty truck cart rumbling along the wide path to the field, so I cut through the 'shortcut' in the hedges and followed the decorative walkways leading to the mansion's rear gardens. Geoff was with him, spotting me waiting near the kitchen gardens, the vehicle slowing down as I approached.
"Lord William, I don't know what you said to Billy, but he simply doesn't believe he has to improve the east garden," I said. "I spoke to him this morning, and he was definitely not receptive to the idea."
Lord William groaned. "Of course," he said. "Julianne, I'm so sorry. I'm afraid that I completely forgot to have a word with him."
"Could you talk to him now?" I asked. "Just give him a firm hint?"
"I would, but I'm afraid we've got a crisis on the reforested acres," said Lord William, apologetically. "We have to dash off just now. But tell him that I've said it must be done. I'm sure that if anyone can persuade a gardener to finish a project, it's you." He gave me a quick smile, shifting the vehicle into gear again as he and Geoff drove away to whatever agriculture emergency awaited.
I could feel my expression fall with disappointment. "As if Billy will ever listen to me," I muttered. Clearly Lord William's confidence was misplaced when it came to my powers of persuasion over his substitute gardener.
I entered the house through the kitchen, where Dinah was busy lifting fresh-baked biscuits onto cooling racks. "Morning, lass," she said. I sneaked a broken cookie from her pile of imperfect ones.
"Dinah," I said. "Do you speak Cornish?"
"Oh, a bit here and there," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered what something meant," I said. Hesitantly, I repeated a few of the words Billy had fired after me earlier. In response, I saw Dinah's eyebrow lift sharply.
"Where on earth did you hear those words?" she demanded.
"Oh, just ... somewhere," I said.
"I've never in all my born days used such language. They ought to be tarred and feathered, whoever said it in your company," she answered, as she slid the last cookie on the rack.
Lady Amanda was back from London and in her office, having a morning cup of tea with the artist. She had left her door open on purpose, so I would catch sight of her before I disappeared into my own. When I rapped on the door frame and peered inside, I saw a series of London shopping bags taking up the chairs and desk, and Constance buttering a muffin while settling into Lady Amanda's armchair
.
"How was London?" I asked, as Lady Amanda motioned me inside.
"Diverting, as always," said Lady Amanda, assuming a snooty accent for this answer. "It was lovely, of course," she added, in her own voice. "The best part being that I talked someone into purchasing a very beautiful gown."
"Pish-posh," said Constance. "A waste of money, that dress. Where will I ever wear it after the wedding? While riding 'round in an open jeep in Italy? Hiking the Alps for a glimpse of spring snowdrops?"
"You'll wear it to parties, of course," said Amanda. "Maybe the opera in Milan, or to the Proms sometime. The point is, you'll look lovely for your wedding day."
"Let me see it," I said.
Constance rose and lifted a garment bag from the sofa. "Behold, the sensible, elegant choice for a bride-to-be of sixty," she said, and I suppressed a laugh, knowing she was probably quoting the London salesperson who presented it. "A work of splendor in fashionable ivory."
She unzipped the garment bag's folds. Inside was a beautiful, soft gown of champagne-colored satin with a wide halter strap, a modest v-neck, and no embroidery or seed pearl studding anywhere, only some light ruching on its bodice. A matching wrap of champagne was draped over a second hanger inside.
It was modern, elegant, and classy — while nothing about it was necessarily 'fashionably taboo' for a woman of Constance's age, it was a bold choice, given how many older women opt for long sleeves and a shorter hemline than the almost train-length one on Constance's gown. But I thought the young-at-heart artist would pull it off beautifully.
"Isn't it gorgeous?" said Lady Amanda. "The moment the salesperson brought it out, I knew it was Constance's. She looked smashing in it."
"As if I'll have need of it for a quick minute in front of the local magistrate," said Constance, with an indulgent smile. She zipped the garment bag closed and laid it aside, taking up her teacup and muffin again.
"At least you should have some flowers at the ceremony," I coaxed. "I could whip up a beautiful bouquet to match your dress. Something small but very elegant." In fact, I already had in the form of a sketch, and I was pleased to see it would go really well with Constance's choice of gown.
